What if 9/11 was planned by the people of Gander, Newfoundland in an a scheme to reroute airplanes and then make the entire world believe that they’re the kindest, most unselfish folks in the whole world? And then—and here’s the real endgame—capitalize on a smash Broadway musical? Horrifying if true! Bad enough to kill over three thousand people and destroy billions of dollars of property for favourable press coverage, good will, and Broadway box office receipts, but they surely couldn’t have known that 9/11 would also lead to invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and years of death and political turmoil? Surely all of the tragedy of the last fifteen years wasn’t part of the plan? All I can say is, Newfoundlanders are very social people, and tickets start at $47, so you do the math!

As Donald Trump attempts to put questions about President Barack Obama’s birthplace behind him, another controversy, this time about Trump himself, is starting to gain attention. And like so many other questions about the Republican Presidential candidate, from his sewer rat’s nest hair-do to his inexplicably orange skin to his tiny baby hands, this one has to do with his body: in this case, his penis, and specifically its girth, or more properly its lack of girth.

If the rumours about Trump’s penis that are starting to become more than the whispers that have long-circulated in New York, Miss Universe pageants, Atlantic City, and Trump family reunions are being spoken out loud more and more frequently, Mr. Trump has only himself to blame. By constantly talking about his sexual conquests, both in and out of marriage, he has surely courted this controversy: women are happy to put unsatisfying sexual experiences behind them and be discrete, especially when it comes to the physical deficiencies of sexual partners, and that’s even more true when it comes to self-aggrandizing, shit-heel billionaires. But Trump insisted on airing his dirty laundry in public, and it’s no surprise that discussion eventually turned to his tighty-whities and how they were never particularly full.

At the same time, his inability to allow the snarky comments about his small hands pass without comment led ex-partners to compare notes and reporters to connect the dots. (You know what they say about men with small hands.) Trump is notoriously thin-skinned when it comes to criticism of himself, and more and more talk is centering on his equally thin-skinned penis, which rumours indicate is of average length, but exceedingly small in circumference, or in common parlance, “girth.”

The small but growing (which cannot be said about Trump’s penis, according to one ex-girlfriend: “It’s just small”) “girther” movement is demanding assurances from the Trump campaign that his penis is of at least average American girth, while criticizing the so-called “lengthers” who are focused on its length. “We in the Republican Party, and others who want to Make America Great Again, are not concerned about penis length,” claims a spokesman, “because we know that our diversity is our strength. The important thing is that the President has a penis, whatever length it happens to be. But it would just make all of us more comfortable to know that The Donald’s packing something substantial. Americans of all colours and lengths know that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats are not the answer to solving our problems. I mean, she doesn’t even have a penis!”

For his part, Trump insists that he has “tremendous girth, beautiful girth, it’s quite something… I can barely fit my hand around it, not that I need to masturbate, I have my pick of gorgeous women… believe me, there’s no issue down there!” When asked to have the distance between his ring finger and thumb measured, however, the candidate demurred, saying that he couldn’t allow that since he was under audit.

Our ongoing series revealing the forgotten slurs and insults kept alive by Major League Baseball continues with the National League West.

Los Angeles Dodgers – In their original home in Brooklyn, the Dodgers took pride in representing the tougher neighbourhoods of New York, far from the glitz and glamour of Manhattan. Visiting teams got a rough ride from fans and their opponents alike, and a common occurrence was for wallets and other valuables to go missing from the clubhouse while a game was being played. When visiting players started to keep their valuables in their uniforms, the “Artful Dodgers”–in particular the infielders–began picking their pockets when they were on the base paths. Eventually teams started to boycott games, forcing the Dodgers to move to Los Angeles and clean up their image.

Arizona Diamondbacks – It’s surprising that this name was chosen for the 1998 expansion team, since it’s a highly offensive term in this state with so many retirees. A “diamondback” is a Bridge player who reneges on suits, and there have been high profile cases of retribution against them; Arizona also has notoriously lax gun control laws.

San Francisco Giants – In the early days of baseball women were not welcome at games, since the new sport was rough-and-tumble and “too exhilarating” for the “fairer sex.” As baseball gained popularity and respectability later in the 19th century, teams began to loosen the restrictions around women attending games. The New York Giants held out the longest, banning women well past the turn of the century, when budding suffragists labeled the team and its owners as women-haters, and “miso-giants.”

Colorado Rockies – A “rockie” is Scottish slang for people who add ice to their whisky. In the frontier American West, where refrigeration was rare and expensive, “rockies” were believed to be flaunting their wealth, which led to gunfights and lynchings. As the West was won, and Colorado established itself as a centre of wealth in the region, its citizen took on the nickname “Rockies” as a badge of honour. Many years later, the expansion baseball team took the name, unaware of its pejorative past. Ironically, the team has not been known for its wealth, either in talent or payroll, and has reached only a single World Series, being swept by the Boston Red Sox in 2007.

San Diego Padres – Protestant baseball fans in California have long accused the Padres of being owned and supported by a secret cabal of child-molesting priests, a notion given some credence by the selection of the team name in 1969.

After the New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels to claim their 40th American League pennant, and with their 40th visit to the Fall Classic starting tomorrow, Major League Baseball is considering some changes to the storied competition to crown baseball’s best team.

Presented each year to the National League or American League team that wins the World Series, the Commissioner’s Cup has been won 26 times by the Yankees, by far more than any other team. This translates to one out of every four World Series wins going to the Yankees, although the team has faced a serious drought in recent years, not having been to the World Series since 2003, and not having won it since 2000, as Yankees captain Derek Jeter and every single broadcaster working today never tire of reminding us. In a move reminiscent of the Royal Yacht Squadron Cup being renamed the America’s Cup after its first winner, discussions are taking place to rename the Commissioner’s Cup the Yankees Cup.

Currently 162 regular season games plus two rounds of playoffs determine the teams that play each other in the World Series. Under proposed changes, if the team that wins the American League Championship Series doesn’t feature pinstripes as part of their uniform, they will be replaced by the New York Yankees.

Controversially, home-field advantage for the World Series is now decided in favour of the League whose team wins the All-Star Game in July. In the future, the advantage would go to whichever team lost its franchise player to the Yankees in the most recent free agent offseason, unless the Yankees are one of the teams, in which case they, of course, will receive home-field advantage.

The National Anthem will now be sung before each World Series game by whichever singer/actress/model/stripper Alex Rodriguez is currently dating. If the Toronto Blue Jays make it to the World Series, the Canadian National Anthem will be performed by former Yankee Bernie Williams on jazz guitar.

World Series games featuring the Yankess will be broadcast in prime time on all major networks, interrupting your regularly-scheduled programming. Games featuring any other team will be run on tape-delay after midnight on Fox, with a broadcast team of Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan, who will mostly talk about themselves.